Snowfight was announced as part of San Diego Comic Con and is
being written by Chris Metzen, senior VP of story and franchise
development, and illustrated by Blizzard artist Wei Wang.

Metzen described the reasoning behind the story as rooted in his
own experience, saying his children had been curious about the
characters and the lore of the game. "I always thought the idea
would be really cool," Polygon reports Metzen as saying. "There was just
something about these ideas [...] that just felt really fun and
like getting back to basics."

When you consider that the games in the Warcraft
franchise come with a PEGI 12 rating it's worth thinking about why
Blizzard is producing content for a far younger audience than can
(or should) be playing its game. One potential explanation is the
cynical "indoctrination of the young with a view to future audience
acquisition". Although subscriber figures are still healthy, the
World of Warcraft player base is undeniably shrinking and it's easy to connect the dots. Get
children conversant with the Alliance vs Horde dynamic and money
will surely follow.

But another, more interesting, explanation exists. That the
people who have spent the past nine years playing the franchise's
MMO, World of Warcraft or who grew up on the RTS games of
the series now have children of their own and it makes sense for
the gaming industry to create ways parents can share their hobbies
with their children in an age-appropriate way.

"Parents will be buying the books, so it feels more like a way
of helping parents of young children, who may have been playing for
the whole life of their child, to connect WoW to their
family lives -- to keep them emotionally engaged with the game
world," games expert Daniel Nye Griffiths told Wired.co.uk.

"It's natural to want your kids to be interested in some of the
things you're interested in," added IGN games editor, Keza
MacDonald. "I'd read Zelda storybooks to my kid in the hope they
might get interested in the universe. I'll certainly be reading
them Harry Potter and Redwall too."

Griffiths points out that "one interesting question is what
WoW, or MMOs might look like by the time the kids being
read Snowfight before bed are in a position to start
playing them in a meaningful way. Will there be an Azeroth at that
point for them to explore?"

Blizzard is circumventing that issue to an extent as the book is
being made in connection with the franchise as a whole and not one
game in particular but the question does raise the possibility of a
future where one generation's experience of the Warcraft
universe comes through stories and movies ( if that thing ever sees the light of day) rather than the games
themselves.